Prometheus Bedeviled

by Norman Levitt

New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1999. 416 pages.

In Prometheus Bedeviled, Norman Levitt attempts to "analyze the standing and the prospects of science in a society that is steeped in a democratic ethos, professes to admire science, and expects great things of science, but which, notwithstanding a massive educational system, comprehends science rather poorly," decrying the prospect of "the supplanting of science by a mélange of viewpoints and methods in which populist enthusiasm or even quasi-religious dogma will be anointed with the cultural authority of the 'scientific'." Richard Dawkins describes Levitt as "a new enlightenment hero, a post-postmodern Prometheus bringing fire to the bellies of scholars and students intimidated by obscurantist intellectual bullies and needing encouragement to fight back."